Computer systems and networks have facilitated the tasks of buying, selling and transferring goods. For example, global computer networks, such as the Internet, have allowed purchasers to relatively quickly and efficiently seek and purchase goods online. Similarly, global computer networks provide an efficient and cost-effective platform for sellers to advertise, offer, provide, and sell their goods. Electronic commerce companies provide buyers and sellers with online services and the infrastructure to accept orders of goods from remote purchasers, to perform the financial transactions necessary to confirm and complete the sale of goods, to ship or distribute the goods to remote purchasers, and to perform other related logistics. For these reasons, sellers actively use the Internet to offer, sell, and distribute a wide variety of goods to take advantage of the many benefits provided by the Internet and electronic commerce.
One example of a market for goods within the realm of electronic commerce is the online marketplace hosted by eBay® Corporation, San Jose, Calif. The eBay® online marketplace is implemented by a network-based system that provides a web-based platform for enabling sellers to list and display items for sale and buyers to bid on and/or purchase the items that are offered. The eBay® online marketplace provides secure transactions between buyers and sellers, online auctions for facilitating transactions at fair market value, and the ability to leave feedback for improving buyer and seller accountability.
To allow a prospective buyer to view details of goods currently being offered for sale, the eBay® online marketplace provides a search interface for allowing a user to submit a query to a search engine and, in response, view search results displayed as a list of goods that satisfy the search criteria specified in the query. In some cases, the search criteria provided by the user may be so specific or narrow that the limited search results provided in response to the query exclude goods which would be of interest to a prospective buyer.